PRAGUE, December 5, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Dozens Hare Krishna followers demonstrated in front of the Kazakh Embassy in Prague today to protest the destruction of a Hare Krishna farming community near the Kazakh capital, Almaty.

Demonstrators read a protest note, then began chanting what they call their transcendental vibration, RFE/RL's Kazakh Service reports.

Kazakh authorities started bulldozing the Sri Vrindavan Dham farming commune on November 21.

The move followed a court ruling ordering that the land on which the community is built be vacated.

The dispute stems from what commune members and Kazakh rights campaigners say are long-running state attempts to seize the land for purposes that remain unclear.

Religious experts of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have expressed concerns at the destruction of Sri Vrindavan Dham, which is the only Hare Krishna commune in the former Soviet Union.

Religion And Tolerance

A thematic webpage devoted to issues of religious tolerance in RFE/RL's broadcast region and around the globe.